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Cancer survivors can be very young
Joe McWilliams
Lakeside Leader
oticed her four-year-old daughter Alexis had a lump on her right side. It seemed odd, so she took her to the doctor, who sent her straightaway to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton.
“It was confirmed she had a tumour on her kidney, about the size of a medium-sized potato,” says Lisa. “It was a huge, huge surprise.”
The doctor had good news as well. Wilm’s tumour, as it’s called – apparently it most commonly occurs in children of Alexis’s age – can more often than not be successfully treated.
‘It’s like winning the lottery’, the Stollery doctor told Alexis’s parents. That might be an odd way of looking at a cancerous tumour, but the success rate is over 90 per cent, so the prospects were good, as long as the cancer hadn’t spread anywhere else, and, Lisa says, as long as they got the thing out in one piece.
Surgery was July 19, one week after diagnosis. It turned out to be the easy part.
“It went without a hitch,” Lisa says.
Nineteen weeks of chemotherapy ensued, which was pretty hard on the little girl. She suffered nosebleeds that wouldn’t quit, fevers, diminished motor control, lack of energy and of course she lost all her hair. The bleeding was especially troublesome. Apparently it happened that the chemicals made it so her blood wouldn’t clot. At one point she had to go to Edmonton for a blood transfusion.
Meanwhile, she was missing the first four months or so of Kindergarten.
As rough as it was, Lisa says she saw children at the Stollery in far, far worse condition.
“She was lucky,” she says.
Jan. 16 of this year was Alexis’s last chemo treatment. She started school a short time later and is back in the swing of things.
“She’s doing great,” says her mom. “Her energy has come back, she’s got her curiosity back. Her interests have livened up again. She loves reading and puppies. She wants to play music. I think she’s going to be quite musical.”
It’s a great relief for the family, and Lisa says her chief feeling at this point is one of gratitude. She says she had to fight against despair and anger – and was determined to do so – but thankfully wasn’t alone. Besides her husband John and other daughter Nina and extended family, there were expressions of support from many others.
“There are so many people with big hearts. Wherever we went people offered to include us in their prayers, and pray with us. It was very moving.”
Lisa says the experience has left her with a new perspective on life’s problems. Having faced the possibility of losing her daughter, other challenges now seem pretty ordinary. She’s also left with a stronger sense that people shouldn’t take each other for granted.
“We need to treat each other with more kindness,” she says.
Lisa was one of those who took part in last week’s Relay For Life cancer fundraiser in Slave Lake, as part of ‘Team Alexis’.
As to why Alexis got cancer in the first place, it remains a mystery, as does so much about the disease. In her case, there had been no symptoms, no sign at all that anything was wrong until the lump showed up.
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